Вопрос 14.

1. The lexical meaning

Every word (lexical unit) has something that is individual, that makes it different from any other word. And it is just the lexical meaning which is the most outstanding individual property of the word.

The lexical meaning of a word or lexical unit may be thought of as the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system and the ‘personality’ it acquires through usage within that system. It is rarely possible to analyze a word, pattern, or structure into distinct com­ponents of meaning; the way in which language works is much too complex to allow that. Nevertheless, it is sometimes useful to play down the complexities of language temporarily in order both to appreciate them and to be able to handle them better in the long run.

2. Collocational meaning

Meaning was discussed almost as if it was a property that each word possesses in its own right. It is, however, disputable whether a word on its own can ‘mean’ anything. To give an account of the meaning of a word in isolation is to contextualize it in its most typical collocations rather than its rarer ones. Asked to explain what dry means, we are likely to think of collocations such as dry clothes, dry river and dry weather, which would prompt the definition ‘free from water’. As we move away from the most common collocations of dry, it becomes clear that the meaning of dry depends largely on its pattern of collocation and is not something that the word possesses in isolation.This suggests that what a word means often depends on its association with certain collocates. When the translation of a word or a stretch of language is criticized as being inaccurate or inappropriate in a given context, the criticism may refer to the translator’s inability to recognize a collocational pattern with a unique meaning different from or exceeding the sum of the meanings of its individual elements. Collocations that involve one or both items being used in other than their discrete dictionary meaning raise similar issues. Taking account of collocational meaning rather than substituting individual words with their dictionary equivalents is therefore crucial at the first stage of translation, that is when the trans­lator is interpreting the source text. even when there appears to be a close match between collocational patterns in two languages, they may not carry the same meaning.

Вопрос 15.

1. Notion of register.

Register is a variety of language that a language user considers appropriate to a specific situation. Register variation arises from variations in the following:

Field of discourse: This is an abstract term for ‘what is going on’ that is relevant to the speaker’s choice of linguistic items. Different linguistic choices are made by different speakers depending on what kind of action other than the immediate action of speaking they see themselves as participating in.

Tenor of discourse: An abstract term for the relationships between the people taking part in the discourse. Getting the tenor of discourse right in translation can be quite difficult. It depends on whether one sees a certain level of formality as ‘right’ from the perspective of the source culture or the target culture. What the translator opts for on any given occasion will of course depend on what s/he perceives to be the overall purpose of the translation. . For example, an American teenager may adopt a highly informal tenor with his / her parents by, among other things, using their first names instead of Mum / Mother and Dad / Father. This level of informality would be highly inappropri¬ate in most other cultures. A translator has to choose between changing the tenor to suit the expectations of the target reader and transferring the informal tenor to give a flavour of the type of relationship that teenagers have with their parents in American society. What the translator opts for on any given occasion will of course depend on what s/he perceives to be the overall purpose of the translation.

Mode of discourse: An abstract term for the role that the language is playing (speech, essay, lecture, instructions) and for its medium of transmission (spoken, written). Linguistic choices are in­fluenced by these dimensions. For example, a word such as re- is perfectly appropriate in a business letter but is rarely, if ever, used in spoken English.